Mykonos to Goa
by texamich
Summary: Identity to Supremacy. JasonMarie.He had thought about these moments plenty, during his long solitude, but never imagined them this way. Updated 6/2/08 only to straighten out some chapter headings.
1. Prologue

Author's Note:

_I started writing this a while ago, before I ever discovered fanfiction. The existence of this forum induced me to polish them up for sharing._

_I didn't invent and don't own these characters or storylines. All was written for hobby purposes._

_I didn't write these to fill in blanks credibly or because I thought I could improve upon the exceptional story creation skills of the filmmakers. In fact, I think that _The Bourne Identity_ and _The Bourne Supremacy _are darned near perfect as they stand. They give just the right amount of information, with elegance, economy and freshness. This is an effort out of my own particular passion for, and interest in, Jason and Marie._

_Thanks to Tigeress-10, Badr, llethe and Adlervan for their terrific stories and drabbles that provided me with much inspiration._

_We start inside _Identity_, then leapfrog to the time period between _Identity_ and _Supremacy_; I hope you'll understand why and how I chose my beginning point once we get into the first original chapter. More chapters on the way. Please review, if you can be constructive. Any suggestions for a better title? Maybe once the whole thing is complete…_

**Prologue**

When Marie woke up and found him missing from the floor of the guest room, she panicked. Was he gone? He had said he would leave her where she wanted, but like this? She ran into the hallway, eyes darting. Her heart skipped a beat when she glimpsed him in the children's room.

"Jason, what are you doing in here?" she hissed. He did not look up, eyes trained on the beds.

"The kids… I couldn't sleep… I was worried…"

"Shhh, you'll wake them up..." She was reaching for his arm, trying to pull him out of the room. The look on his face stopped her in mid-sentence.

"I don't care who I am any more. I don't want to know." His eyes were dull with grief and regret as he gazed at the children. Her heart went out to him, the confusion and fear she had been feeling since their discovery of his vocation melting into compassion.

"We can talk out—," she whispered, as he went on, not hearing her.

"Everything I found out, I want to forget."

She leaned in closer, cupping his cheek with her palm, trying to hold his eyes with hers. "It's okay," she whispered in his ear.

He wheeled suddenly to face her, eyes intense, trying to whisper. "We have this money," he said, earnestly. "We can hide. Could we do that? Is there any way you would do that?" The impassive mask that had fallen down over his face as he read her perfectly in the taxicab in Paris lifted as his eyes met hers in frank hopefulness.

Marie was still murmuring quiet reassurances, eyes searching Jason's beseeching eyes as she stepped even closer to him and reached for his body. Their eyes met, but instead of Jason she saw Castel crashing through the glass into Jason's apartment, saw Jason breaking the other man's bones with efficient aplomb, saw with utter clarity of detail the bullet hole in Jason's landlady's forehead as they fled the building, felt again how Jason pushed her up against a shop's rolldown door just a night ago. Her eyes dropped, the fear slicing between the two of them again. She shook her head, "I don't know," she whispered, regretfully, reopening the gulf between them.

His eyes fell from her face. He looked back at the children one last time and allowed her to lead him out of their bedroom and back to the guest room. Trained to perceive all and reveal nothing, he could see her fear, smell it on her. What do you expect?, he asked himself bitterly. He was a killer, a monster. How could someone like Marie ever want anything to do with someone like him? Knowing what he now knew, how could he think he would ever be anything but alone, as alone as he had been when he floated, unconscious, in the Mediterranean?

Marie was pushing him gently to sit on the bed, her emotions in turmoil. Glancing at his face and failing to wrest his regard away from his inner thoughts, she kneeled on the floor and removed his shoes. She remembered how he made her put on clothes before going to sleep in their hotel in Paris; she would have been happier feeling his naked skin against hers all night long. "In case we need to leave in a hurry," he'd said. Gently, she pulled one sleeve of his sweater off his arm, and then the other. Lifting it over his head, she again sought his eyes. Jason looked away as long as he could, not wanting to see himself mirrored back in her visceral loathing of him. A hood of shame masked his eyes and face.

She was just starting to rise, planning to soothe him down into the bed in hopes that they might both sleep a bit before morning. At the sight of his shame-wracked face, her fear disappeared and her heart again broke open for this man she had fallen in love with three nights ago in Paris. He had taken her with him when it would have been smarter to leave her in the apartment. Brought her along when it would have been easier for him to run alone. He had made his deadly hands gentle for her. His tender urgency and drive for the truth had won her heart completely in the two days they had lived together in ignorance of his identity.

She imagined that he remembered no other woman. But still, she could not have fully understood the flood of sensations that her first, experimental kiss had unleashed in Jason, conditioned as he was to view other people's bodies as systems to thwart and overcome, and his own as a mechanism of death whose human impulses were only to be endured. Each moment that he had spent with Marie was a revelation of what it meant to be alive, and human. He did not know how he could let that go.

Marie sank back down on her knees, sliding her hands up his thighs to his waist. She pulled him close and whispered again, "It's okay; it's going to be okay. " She pressed her cheek against his now wet face and kissed his two eyes, drinking tears, then let him taste them on her tongue.

The two of them adrift now at the confluence of fear and shame, Marie slid her hands up his back, feeling the fresh scars there. She did not shrink from them, instead running her hands up under his shirt, his skin warm and jumpy over hard muscle as she pulled him closer. His hands reached reflexively toward the buttons of her pajama top, then paused as he broke their kiss, a question on his still-shaded face. She held his gaze and wordlessly pulled his t-shirt over his head, then shivered as he unbuttoned her top and reached inside. Hands quivering at the feel of her tender skin, his touch nonetheless elicited quiet sounds from deep in her throat. She let the top fall to the floor.

Marie's hands moved over Jason's flat stomach, reveling in the tautness of his body. Her head on his shoulder now as he nibbled where his hands had just been, she could still feel moisture on his skin where tears had fallen. Reaching, leaning, she wrested from him gasps and sighs, Jason gratefully receiving from her. Still, his hands were restless, unable to break contact with her silky skin. He gently pulled her up, rocking them back onto the bed. He pushed her pajama bottoms to the floor before kicking off his own pants and wrapping the quilt around them in the cold room.

Their mouths sought each other as they pressed chest to chest, belly to belly. He shifted her beneath him and gave a quiet near-sob as he sank into her softness. Marie crooned, "It's okay, my love" a hand on his head. He pressed his forehead into the side of her face, tiny, broken noises leaving him. Her acceptance of him, knowing what he was, confounded all his sensibilities.

"Jason, it's going to be okay," she insisted, voice petal-soft, thumb tracing his cheekbone as she coaxed him to look her in the eye. Deciding. Eye to eye, masks withdrawn, they began to move together. Her face was wet with tears; she didn't know any more whose they were.

She was asleep when the first light of dawn appeared; he was not. She stirred as he sat up on the edge of the bed to pull on his clothes. "Do I have time for a quick shower before we leave?" she asked. He stopped groping on the floor for his sweater, looked around at her unblinking face, searching hard. He realized that, despite everything she had seen since Zurich, she didn't know what she was getting into. He realized he did, though he didn't know how he could, and he decided he could be vigilant enough for both of them. He turned away, recalculating his plans to accommodate running _a deaux_.

He nodded his head, pulling on the sweater. He rested his hand on her hip for a second, then stood up. He knew that when she said a quick shower, she really meant a quick one. He also knew, somehow, that this was a rare trait in a woman. "I'll make coffee," he said, not dwelling on it.

"Try not to wake anyone," she whispered, but he was already silently gone.


	2. Chapter 1

Marie ran across the store and into Jason's arms. The joy she felt as she hugged him close was reflected back to her in his face and his eyes when she stepped back to look at him. God, it was amazing to see such a broad smile on his face… She had seen that only once or twice before, in those brief days when they were enjoying a state of grace in Paris. Before they learned of his occupation. 

Since then, chaos. The fear and regret upon learning his profession. The terror of hearing an explosion and gunshots from inside Eamon's house. Relief at his safe return, and dread at what he had done to secure their safety. The grief of losing him. The confusion of being completely alone and the loneliness of hiding. Brooding that he had done the right thing in sending her away, and hating the right thing. 

She touched her hand to his cheek and sprang into his arms again. They hugged for a long time, laughing a bit, and then stepped back from each other. Caught each other's eyes and laughed a bit more. Jason looked around. A strange sound was coming from across the room. 

Marie walked quickly behind the counter and disappeared, bending down to reach something. When she stood up, she had a fat-cheeked, red-haired, blue-eyed baby in her arms. She glowed with maternal pride as she looked into the round face, then turned to Jason, tears shimmering in her eyes. "I call her Drächen," she said. He looked at them, mouth fallen open, mute.

"Drächen?" Jason managed. "Dragon? Little Dragon."

"So she should be fierce and powerful. Safe," said her mother.

The baby fussed, looking at the stranger. "Drächen," Marie crooned, "That's your _Vati_." 


	3. Chapter 2

The baby had his eyes and her mother's mouth and hair. Her fat cheeks, too, according to Marie. "She eats a lot," Marie said, bragging somehow, from where she was nursing Drächen on the bed, upstairs in the apartment over the store. "There is this picture of me, from when I was her age, and my cheeks are so fat that you almost can't tell I have any eyes." She glanced up at where he sat alongside the bed in the room's lone chair.

He could generate no comment. Neither could he take his eyes off them. The baby looked up in the dim light of the shuttered room, reaching a pudgy hand to touch her mother's face sleepily. Marie kissed it tenderly and watched as the baby's eyes closed and then opened again, once, twice. The third time, she slept, her little hand falling gently to rest beneath Marie's chin. Marie turned toward the wall, easing Drächen down onto the bed, pausing to get her settled.

Jason's thoughts were riotous under his implacable exterior. He had barely registered the cheerfully messy apartment where Marie and Drächen lived. Hadn't checked out the windows for site lines or possible alternative exits. For the first time in longer than he knew, he had no plan for what to do next.

As he had worked toward his objective of finding Marie, it never occurred to him that a baby could be part of the picture. He had thought about these moments plenty, during his long solitude, but never imagined them this way. It had been a long road from Rayonne to her doorstep in Greece. For her, too, he could see that.

Unencumbered by Marie's innocence, he had done his best to extricate himself from Treadstone in the only way that they understood. Three more men dead by his hands—would he ever be able to tell her about it? Should he try? After that deadly day in Paris, he spent several months on the run, just trying to be invisible, pull his head together, and forget about Marie. He found that being invisible had an ache to it now that he had lived, so briefly, in the light of Marie's regard. Finding her became his mission.

It had taken a lot longer than he expected. He thought he had a leg up, remembering her fond description of the shop in Biarritz, and her Corfu t-shirt. So, starting in Russia, on the Black Sea, he trekked along coastline, piecing together from nothing a network of underworld contacts. Somehow, whatever city he was in, he knew instinctively where to find the things he needed to help him find Marie, such as copies of her passport picture, and the things he might need along the way, such as a good Sig Sauer. All from people who would forget him and his shopping list just as quickly and as purposefully as he would forget them—until he might need them again in the future.

As it ended up, he had taken the long way around, along the Mediterranean through the Middle East and Africa. He imagined Marie more geographically adventurous than she actually was. And hoped that she was savvier. He would never open a shop that was sure to end up in Lonely Planet as his cover… But, one thing at a time. He had found her. Them.

Marie rolled over to face him, the baby sleeping peacefully and safely on the wall side of the bed. "Jason, I—" His kiss cut her off. He leaned forward out of the chair, falling to his knees on the floor and pulling her into his arms. Feeling her arms tight around him, he buried his face gratefully in her neck. Her skin a welcome warmth, he could smell the sweetness of the milk on her and hear the baby's soft breathing. "You found us," she whispered.

Hands on either side of her face as her tears fell, he kissed her again, hard, and then couldn't help looking at Drächen. So much life. From Marie and from him, from the confusion of Paris. It amazed him. Following his gaze, Marie lay back on the pillows, nestling Jason's face against her chest so that he could watch the baby.

"Come on. There's room for you, too" Marie said. She shifted over closer to the sleeping child, and Jason stretched out next to her, allowing her to cradle his head in her arms as he looked at his daughter. He had never seen anything less fierce, and more exquisite. The fat cheeks and belly induced a smile.

Marie was observing him observe the baby. He could feel the relief in her. Still, his mind was swimming with questions. She didn't wait for him to ask.

"I didn't expect this, either," she told him. "It was May before I realized for sure that she was coming… It was a surprise."

"How…" Jason realized the idiocy of his question before it was asked.

"The usual way. You didn't forget where babies come from, did you?" Her mouth quirked with amusement as she teased him gently. Seeing his honest befuddlement, she took pity on him. "Listen, my ex-boyfriend dumped me three weeks before we met. I went off the Pill. We didn't, either one of us, think about protection." She spoke more quietly. "But I fell in love with you, and I love her, so I'm not sorry."

"When is her birthday?" he asked.

"September 22nd. She's four months old." Her hands on his head, stroking his hair, felt good, soothing.

"Is she… Is everything okay with her?"

"Oh, she's fine. Strong as an ox. She already rolls over on her own. She's completely healthy."

"And you… How was it for you?"

She was silent for a long moment, her hands growing still on his head, and he glanced up to see her gaze grow distant, maybe a little sad. Maybe he'd asked the wrong question. "It was fine. She came fast; too fast for anesthesia." She grimaced, but there was a trace of boastfulness again. "No complications. The midwife said that I'm stronger than an ox." The sadness was gone, replaced by wry amusement. "So, Drächen comes by it naturally."

"Midwife?"

She understood his question. "She was born at the University Hospital in Thessaloniki. I posed as an indigent traveler, no papers, fake name.

"Why indigent? You had that big sack of money…"

"A girl with a pile of cash coming in to give birth and then disappearing is remarkable. A penniless girl, that's something they see every day, and they look away, forget about her as soon as she's gone. It effaced us." He nodded, respect for her smarts evident on his face.

"They loaded me up with birth control before they let us go, told me that they didn't want to see me back again next year." She had found this hilarious at the time, and gave a little snort of laughter in remembering it. "When she was a few weeks old, we came here. I bought the shop. Here we are…"

Jason let himself rest a moment, his head heavy on Marie's chest, listening to her heartbeat, eyes still on the baby that was his and Marie's. Feeling their pull. Feeling something else, too, something even less familiar: fear. For Marie, for the baby. "Maybe I should go," he said.

"What?" Marie sat up, dislodging him. Her eyes flashed with disbelief. He sat up, too.

"What if Treadstone is still after me? Think about what could happen. Think about what happened at Eamon's, Marie."

"What—Why did you come here, if it was only to leave five minutes later?" Marie's face had melted into confusion and raw hurt.

"I didn't know there was a baby here," he said quietly. Hearing her swift exhalation of breath and seeing her confusion ignite into red-hot anger, he put his hands up, suddenly helpless, desperate. "Look, I came for you because I thought I could keep the two of us safe. I mean, if you could agree that you wanted that; if you wanted me. But it would mean running, hiding. All the time, Marie! What kind of life is that going to be for her?" He looked over at the tiny, sleeping form once again. "How can I keep her safe? How can I be a father to her when I don't even know who I am?"

"I know who you are," she said, in a broken voice. "Drächen will know, too. You're her one and only father. The one perfect father for her. We want you here with us. "

Jason thought about what he knew about himself and his past and the forces that created both. Weighed it against what he knew about the forces that had created this child. This child was his, his and Marie's. And that outweighed everything. "I want to stay," he said. Jason reached out and pulled Marie to him. Her body was still coursing with electricity from their exchange, but she yielded to him, folding herself against him to lie back down again.

Jason reached over Marie, gently putting his hand on the baby girl's tummy. She slept on, and he rested it there, feeling the child's breath, her heartbeat. A grimace passed over the little face and a small cry issued forth. Jason quickly removed the hand, looking up at Marie, guiltily. "She's fine," she reassured him, looking. "A dream."

There was something he felt strongly. "I'm sorry I wasn't there. With you. For her."

"You didn't have a choice…" was her murmured reply. She inhaled sharply, shaking off her sharp emotions, trying to locate different ones. Finally she grinned slightly. "We're super-spies, Drächen and I; of course you couldn't find us."

She took his hand in hers and he tore his eyes away from Drächen. Marie's look was one he had seen before, in a dingy hotel room in Paris. Serenely determined, smiling a small smile. He pulled her tight against him to kiss that smile again and again. Her kisses were hungry in return, and her hands went to his shirt buttons.

Jason cast a glance at the baby. "Will she wake up?"

She shrugged, serene, smiling. "Let's find out."


	4. Chapter 3

Marie deferred to Jason on matters of security; Jason deferred to Marie on matters of baby-tending. In all, though, he kept his distance from the baby. It took her a while to talk him into watching Drächen during the afternoon, so that she could shop alone.

"What will you tell the shop ladies who ask about her?" He'd asked.

"My neighbor is watching her." 

"Why don't they know your neighbor?" Drilling her.

She sighed. "My friend is visiting?"

"You can only use that for about a week." 

"So, next week, I'll take her with me again." He still wasn't comfortable with it, but he said ok. She smiled, happy to have some liberty after five months, and kissed him goodbye.

A day that week, she came in from a shopping trip to hear Drächen's cries coming from the apartment. _Shit! Where was Jason?_ She ran upstairs, only to find Drächen on the bed, and Jason, brow creased, regarding the wailing baby from the chair. "Jason! What is wrong with you?" she hissed. He stared blankly as she picked the baby up and murmured to her. Marie sang and walked up and down, but the frantic infant was too far gone to settle. 

Sitting on the bed, Marie quickly opened her blouse and offered her breast to the hysterical child. Drächen latched on, gasping a bit every now and then as she regulated in the comfort of her mother's arms. Eventually, the exhausted baby fell asleep. Marie continued to hold her close, brushing her lips against the fuzzy hair on the top of the little girl's head until Drächen was limp. Carefully setting the child down on the bed, Marie turned to Jason, fastening her blouse.

'What happened? What is wrong with you?" she asked again, more gently this time. "That 's a baby; when she cries, you pick her up!"

"I just, I couldn't…" Jason's eyes were blank. "I was afraid I would hurt her."

Marie drew back. "Hurt her? How?" 

"I shouldn't touch her. I don't deserve her." Marie was positively puzzled. Jason sighed, rubbed his aching eyes. Told her everything about his last night in Paris, recounted every detail of his recovered memory: how he masterminded the killing of Wombosi, and why he couldn't bring himself to do it in the end. "Conklin said I was a 30 million dollar weapon. For that kind of money… Wombosi is the only one I remember, and that mission was a failure. How many others were there that were successes?" His forehead was wrinkled, his eyes haunted and bloodshot. She could tell that the headache was bad today.

Marie knelt down beside him, taking his face in her hands. "Jason, listen to me. What you did or didn't do before is in the past. That night in Paris, you didn't have a choice. You were trying to find the truth and you did what you had to do to survive. You didn't pull the trigger on that boat; you didn't hurt those children. You wouldn't do any of those things again." 

"Wombosi, he didn't deserve those children or not deserve them. He was their father. You're Drächen's father, and she doesn't know anything except that she needs you. All she has is love for you. Let her love you. We both love you so much." 

Marie went to the bed then, and picked up the sleeping baby. Took her and deposited her into Jason's scarred hands. Drächen stirred and gurgled in her sleep, opening her eyes and rolling tightly into her father's chest. For a brief moment, she held Jason's gaze, with the least judgmental eyes he had ever seen, except, perhaps, for Marie's. Marie encircled them both with her arms, sinking to her knees and looking up into Jason's face. What she saw there, as he looked at his child and his brow became smooth, she would never forget. 

After that, Jason opened himself to family life. Drächen warmed up to him quickly. He took over middle-of-the-night diaper duty. Marie canonized him for this, despite knowing that he was usually awake in the night anyway. He would return the clean and dry baby to her side of the bed, and then curl himself around them as they drifted back to sleep. She felt a security that had never been present in her life before. Jason was the only person who had ever come back to her. Twice now, he had come back.

She knew he didn't sleep much. He had dreams that troubled him. Sometimes he flailed around in bed. By tacit agreement, Drächen was always between Marie and the wall, never between her parents. Marie would huddle protectively around Drächen until the dream passed or he awoke, then roll over to cradle his sweaty head, the baby safely on her other side. Jason would be up when she and the baby awoke, and the kitchen would be spotless, or all of Drächen's tiny clothes would be folded and arranged neatly in their drawers by article and color. Jason would be sitting in the dark with the shutters closed, pale and anxious. The bright sunlight aggravated his headaches.

On those days, Marie would put the "Be Back Soon" sign up in the window during afternoon naptime, but would stay home instead of shopping. She would talk to Jason: telling stories, teasing him about keeping the baby up instead of the other way around, trying to get him to laugh with her. Coaxing him into their bed for the sweetest relief. Drächen always slept right through, and they would have whatever fresh fruit and old bread they had lying around for supper on those nights. 

He told her about his dreams, so vivid, so populated by Conklin, so violent; he believed they had to be memories percolating up from behind the protective balm of amnesia. Marie listened to it all, wondering privately whether they were memories or just the projections of a person feeling guilty over what little he could remember. In any case, she could see why he couldn't sleep; why he wouldn't want to, even. 

As much as the things he described doing were abhorrent to her, she wished relief for him. She had immense forgiveness for the man who wanted to do the right thing; the man who came for her with an apology. The man who paid for his past in headaches and night terrors, in a life lived on the margins. The man whose love for their child was written all over him whenever he looked into the blue eyes that were his gift to her.

Another day, a week after she had used up the friend story with the shop ladies, Marie had something extra when she and Drächen came back from shopping: a blank book, bound in leather. "It might help you piece things together," she said, "If you write the dreams down." 


	5. Chapter 4

From the time he met her, Marie was Jason's tether to the human race. Her acceptance of him, her help, even her visceral fear of what he had been, all gave her the face of humanity that he longed to see mirrored back at him. And he could be alert enough for two, he knew he could. It was only due to this that he had begun looking for Marie and allowed himself to make contact.

But a baby changed everything. Drächen had won his heart, to be sure. The moment he laid eyes on her, he knew she was his, and he knew he was more vulnerable because of the fact of her existence. And Marie, all that he felt for her before was minuscule in comparison to now. They may have created the burst of life that was Drächen together, but Marie had nurtured it, borne it, bravely and lovingly shouldering all the responsibility during their long separation. And so there was a terrible joy to family life for Jason. Because, right as she was about many things, Marie was wrong when she said he wouldn't commit violence again. He knew his past actions would pale in comparison to what he would do to keep them safe. That he would go to the ends of the earth to kill the person who harmed a hair on either of their heads. 

When the dreams didn't ruin his sleep now, his new fears did. What if Treadstone found out about the child? What if they were watching, waiting for the right moment? Conklin had said that leaving wasn't his decision. What would they do to make sure that it wasn't? What would they want him to do in exchange for the safety of Marie and their daughter? They probably just flat out wanted him dead, and what if Marie and Drächen got in the way?

Already conditioned to live in a constant state of heightened awareness, Jason now drilled himself relentlessly. He devised alternate routes, worked on the stairs and doors so that creaks and squeaks sounded whenever they were used. He created code words and code behaviors for himself and Marie, and exfil routines with contingency plans for meeting up in a safe place in case the worst happened. Marie memorized his playbook without question or complaint. Whether she saw his behavior as quirky or necessary, she accepted it as part of living with him. And she was happy having him there; he could see that, feel it, every day.

He started formulating a long-term plan. He went out at night, after Marie and the baby were asleep. Sometimes just for long runs, coming home drenched in sweat, forehead knotted up with too much thinking. Other times, he came in smelling of cigarette smoke, an old café or pool hall smell. He got Marie to have some passport photos made, according to a meticulous plan that had her go by ferry to the mainland, procure a wig, get the pictures taken, and then return by a different route. He kept Drächen home with him while she went.

He asked Marie for more information about Drächen's birth. "What did you tell them? About yourself, at the hospital?"

"That my name is Salina Bauer, from Vienna—"

"Salina?"

"It's a very common German name, Jason."

One corner of his mouth tugged down. "OK, go on."

"I'm from Austria, I've been traveling a long time. I lent my passport to a friend who was in trouble. Obviously, I'm not super bright…" He glanced up, no smile, nodded impatiently. "My boyfriend walked out on me, leaving me with no money."

"Where's he from?"

"Didn't say; I couldn't stand to speak of him. Didn't give his name." He nodded again, in approval this time.

"Is there a birth certificate?" he asked her.

"I didn't stick around for that," she said. "It would just have had to be false, anyway, right?"

A few days later, he surprised her by telling her they were going to Thessaloniki. He put her and the baby on the morning ferry-to-bus connection to Athens and met them there late in the day in a nondescript Ford sedan. She didn't ask where it came from. She sat in the back with Drächen, while he drove north and briefed her.

"I'm Gilberto do Piento, your baby's father. I'm Brazilian."

"You speak Portuguese?" Marie interrupted.

"Enough, I think… Do you think anyone at the hospital does?"

"I don't know. Maybe; it's a pretty big hospital."

"Here's your passport." He handed back an Austrian passport, picture showing Marie with below-the-shoulder-length brown hair. Name: Salina K. Bauer. Worn cover. Many entry and exit stamps dating back six years.

It looked like the real deal. Intrigued, she asked, "Jason, where did you get this?"

He ignored her question, pressing on with their cover story. "We are going there to get the baby's birth certificate, and to fill in my name as father. We patched things up and I want to be responsible." He looked at Marie in the rearview, then down at Drächen in her lap. The baby caught his eye in the mirror and squealed with delight. He pulled a face for her and smiled at her ecstatic reaction. Glanced at the road, looked back at Marie. "Got it? Need me to go over it again?"

"No, I got it."

They lucked out and the hospital administrator they met with the next day spoke only Greek, English and French. Jason spoke French with him, hoping that the man's Greek filter would erase any trace of American accent that came through. Once he made it clear that he wished to settle the hospital bill, it was only a matter of a few strokes of a pen and the exchange of money. The man glanced at their passports just to get their names spelled correctly on the form.

"_Et l'enfant? Comment l'appellez-vous_?"

Marie opened her mouth, but Jason spoke first. "Marie," answered Jason. "Marie Helena." He wrote it down for the man, who carefully copied it over to the form. Two minutes later, birth certificate in hand, they were exiting the office. Jason made one more stop, at a copy shop, before pointing the car to the outskirts of town.

In their second Thessaloniki motel room in two days, lying in Jason's arms late that night, Marie asked, "Why did you give my name?"

"Every girl needs a pretty name," he said. "How is she going to catch a husband with a name like Dragon?"

"She's still Drächen to me," Marie said, sleepily.

Marie nestled the baby closer to her bosom and closed her eyes, settling back into Jason's arms. Jason reached under Marie's arm to lightly feel Drächen's downy head, then rested his hand on Marie's breast. "How come you're so unlucky?" he asked.

"Hmmmm?" She didn't feel unlucky. She pressed her lower body back into him, and her upper body forward into his hand.

"All those books you have say that your bra size should increase a lot when you're nursing," he explained, his fingers active. "How did you miss that boat?"

Her eyes flew open and she let go of the baby to roll over and look at him, amazed and insulted. He was sanguine, and then the left corner of his mouth raised slightly and she knew he was teasing her.

"You always liked them so much as they are, I wouldn't want them to change," she teased back. "Besides, I didn't know that you could read German so well."

"Well, a man can't miss what he's never had, I guess." He hadn't removed his hand.

"Jason!" She was looking a bit miffed now.

"You know I love them," he said, placatingly. "Let me show you how much."

"Good thing Drächen is asleep," Marie said, between sighs. "She thinks of those as hers…"


	6. Chapter 5

Abandoned by her own mother, Marie was surprised to find how naturally that role came to her. When she saw the positive on the home pregnancy test, chaotic longing was replaced with gratitude at having this tangible reminder of the love she shared with Jason. She gained a sense of purpose that had been lacking even before she met him in nurturing the growing life she carried within.

Running, hiding, trying to remember the things that Jason had said and shown her that would help her in her new life, all had brought only confusion. Patting her growing belly and feeling Drächen's answering kick from within, she decided that hiding didn't have to mean being fearful. When she looked at her baby's face for the first time and saw Jason's eyes looking back at her, she could scarcely believe the incredible gift she had been given. His appearance at their doorstep was, she realized now, the answer to a prayer that she had not even allowed herself to form in her mind.

There would be compromises, she knew that. She had known from the first day he showed up. At his insistence, they started using the name _Papa_ for him. He reasoned that, whereas _Vati_ is strictly German, _Papa_ flies in any language. Yet, when he told her they needed to leave Greece, she didn't want to go, not yet.

"It's not safe here, Marie. You own a shop, serving the public. People of all different nationalities traipse in and out, go back home and tell their friends about it, about you and your baby. You do the same things every day, the same routine, day in and day out. And Drächen is a magnet for attention. "

She couldn't deny the last; couldn't deny any of it, but especially not the last. Striking with her blue eyes and red hair, sweet natured, and as social as her mother, the baby drew looks and greetings from everybody who crossed her path: shopkeepers, grannies, businessmen, other mamas with babies. She smiled at strangers and they all wanted to know her name, her age, Marie's name, and were they new in town?

"This wouldn't even be safe without me," he said. "Now that we're together, it'll get us all killed. We're on an island, for Christ's sake; how could we leave in a hurry?" Jason was looking at her with a serious intensity that told her there was no arguing. "I think we can be safe, but we have to keep moving. It's the only way; we have no choice."

Marie could see that he really believed that, and his insistence swayed her. Maybe they were in danger, and had been all along. Whoever was after Jason had the power to distribute pictures of them taken inside the US Embassy within 24 hours of them being there, to alert the Paris police, to send an assassin to the French countryside. The thought of Drächen falling victim to a machine-gun-wielding killer chilled her. She packed the bare essentials into a backpack as he instructed, and let him put her and Drächen on the ferry. He met them two days later, in Athens. He offered no details about the shop or its disposal.

Life became a parade of different countries, different cities and towns. Brindisi, Naples, Perpignan, Valencia, Málaga, Lisbon. They stayed no place longer than three months; some, mere days. Jason was their bellwether; someone or something that he would see, a conversation with a stranger that felt wrong, anything that seemed wrong to him would trigger the next leg in their journey.

There would be a bus ride to a nearby town for her and Drächen. Jason would meet them within a day in a car they had never seen before, and they would be off to the next place. They changed hairstyles and colors often and accumulated more passports along the way. They took turns picking the next destination, but Jason always had veto power. Marie accepted that he had to avoid some locations, and that he didn't know why.

It wasn't hard for Marie to make the best of it. She had never settled down since leaving home at 16; the only way that this differed was that now she was blessedly anchored to Jason and Drächen. Drächen had her parents, and she and Jason had the baby and each other. Sometimes, she could even believe in the lighthearted exterior: young couple, adventurers, deeply in love, a little baby to show for it. There were many sweet days and sweeter nights, now that she and Jason shared a life.

Used to many easy and spontaneous friendships, Marie reminded herself that one companion, one love, was better than none, which was what she'd had in Greece, before Jason arrived. Still, she missed the friends, the Eamons. After tearing out of Rayonne with her and his children, however, Eamon couldn't get rid of her fast enough. A curt "Good luck," before he left her standing on a Lyon street corner, but no "Call me if you need help." And who could blame him? It wouldn't be fair to make friends now, not fair to them and not fair to Jason, who carried their safety on his shoulders.

She saw his relationship with their daughter deepen as the baby grew into toddlerhood. Drächen would light up when he came home, crumple when he left. An early talker, it seemed as if she said "Papa" three times for every other word in her vocabulary. She loved his games and roughhousing. He would pretend to eat her ears, her nose, her toes, her tummy, and she would shriek with laughter. The first time she walked across the room, it was straight into his arms, their two faces beaming together in concert.

One night, in a Naples apartment while he was changing the fussy baby, Marie was drifting in and out of sleep when she heard him singing, hoarsely and so quietly, barely carrying a tune:

…the wind will hmmhm your name…

Little birds hm mm mmmm mm,

Leaves will… hmm mm when you walk by

And morning bells will chime. (1)

Marie opened her eyes to see her two beloveds almost nose to nose, the cranky child turned quiet and serious; Jason equally so. He sang a verse, dropping words left and right, and the baby's thickly fringed eyelids began to droop. Giving up on the words, he began to hum, and soon deposited the slumbering baby into her cozy spot against Marie's chest and belly. Still humming, he stretched out next to Marie, sighing as his voice drifted off. She had never heard that song before; she wondered from what distant catacomb it had emerged.

Had her father ever sung to her that way? She didn't think so. A heavy drinker, he was almost always asleep before she was. Impossible to wake, too, if a little girl had a nightmare in the years between her mother's disappearance and her stepmother's appearance. Soon after her baby brother came along, he was dead. Driving home drunk from a bar one night, he had not heeded the signal lights at a train crossing. _Steifmuttie_ disintegrated, leaving her and her baby brother with _Großmutter_ for longer and longer periods of time, until no one could deny that her abandonment was final, too.

Tears thickening her throat, Marie reached an arm back around to touch his hair, his face. His hand cupped her cheek and then traced her jawline, gently smoothing her hair back to reveal an invitingly tender place to receive his kisses. Breath quickening, she turned to him and let him pull her body onto his.

Next time she was in an internet café, she searched on the one phrase from the song that she could remember, and came home with a printout of the complete lyrics clutched in her hand. Drächen was napping when she made a grand entrance into the apartment.

"I found your song," she said, eyes sparking, mouth twitching with contained mirth. She held up the sheet of paper in front of his face. "Written by… John Denver!" She erupted into peals of laughter as he took the paper, looking at it closely. "The one song in the world that you can remember is vintage 1970s John Denver. You poor boy!"

Her teasing appeared not to register until he had read the whole song through once. He glanced up, offhand. "Well, not everyone can be brought up on the complete discography of Black Flag," he said mildly. Her stepmother had been very young, and Marie had told him in great detail about the multi-day hardcore music festivals she had been dragged to from an early age.

"Anyway, the song didn't make ME cry did it?" he asked, flicking the paper aside and grabbing her, tickling in the same spots that always wrested shrieks from Drächen. She put up a good fight, spawning a wrestling match that he eventually decided was in his best interests to let her win. After that, Marie would hear him singing that song, in its entirety, to Drächen late at night.

When the rough days came, they were often precipitated by rough nights. Jolted awake by Jason's thrashing, Marie sometimes had to take Drächen and sleep on the sofa. One awful night in Madrid, she was awakened in bed by his fist meeting her solar plexus with all the force of a freight train. Paralyzed, unable to generate sound, gasping for air, she was terrified for her little girl. Her choked rasping woke both Drächen and Jason, one howling and the other throwing himself upright and clapping firmly into his palm a gun that she hadn't known was hidden in her bed.

At the sight of the gun, Marie found that she could indeed move, and hurled herself over Drächen, the air burning as it finally found its way into her lungs. She kept her hands flat on the mattress as Jason backed away. He did not come back to bed with them that night, or any night soon thereafter.

Marie began putting Drächen to sleep on a cot at the foot of the bed. Over time the ugly purple-green bruise on her chest faded to a mere tinge and then disappeared. Jason came back to their bed, his hands soft as a whisper, his mouth trembling with remorse as he kissed her. He wound himself around her while she went to sleep, same as always. More often than not, when she awoke during the night, she found a pool of sweat next to her where she expected him to be, and no trace of him in their rooms. His body grew harder as he traded sleep for running, pushups, pull-ups. When she hugged him now, it was like embracing a statue.

He insisted on showing her the firearms in their hiding places, made her learn the rudiments of operating them. She never felt safer for having a handgun close by, never actually fired one. But she knew Jason felt better thinking that she was prepared to do so.

Sometimes there were still carefree mornings on the beach; she and Drächen wading and splashing while Jason went off for another run. He didn't really care for swimming, especially in the Mediterranean. She thought that he felt foolish wearing a shirt in the water, yet didn't want to expose the scars on his back. "Too distinctive," he would say. "Identifying marks." She picked up a rashguard at a flea market in his size, and he came with them sometimes after that. Drächen would lie on his back and squeal with delight as he ferried her through the shallow tide balanced on his elbows to scoot along on his stomach.

These mornings would be capped by picnic lunches and long afternoons inside, Drächen peaceful in her cot and her parents restive in their bed. Marie would often sleep, awakening with the baby snuggled next to her instead of Jason. Sounds coming from the next room told the tale of how Jason was passing the time.

There might be the scritch-scratch of his pen on the paper of the leather-bound book. The quiet sigh of newspaper pages turning. The schwik of an x-acto blade cutting through a passport photo. The definitive click of a full clip seating into a sidearm. Marie always gave clear warning to Jason that they were up before taking Drächen to see him post-nap: singing and talking animatedly to the baby while she changed her diaper. The guns were always out of sight by the time they came out of the bedroom.

(1)For Baby/For Bobbie, by John Denver.

Hear John Denver's recording with a background of tulips on youtube:

/watch?vsR7iFfmPPS4. Not an endorsement. :)


	7. Chapter 6

Jason started noticing that wherever they landed, whatever city or small town, apartment, shack or motel room, Marie had a knack for creating beauty around them. All out of stuff that could be tossed in the bin with no regrets when they bugged out. An odd container picked up at a flea market or an old jelly jar would become a vase. Dandelions plucked by Drächen or flowers from the market would find a home there. Crayoned scribbles would be framed in colored construction paper and mounted carefully to the wall with sticky tack so as not to take the paint off when removed. Little treasures would appear, things for Drächen to look at and play with. Stuff found outside: seashells, acorns, seaglass—all came to adorn their rooms.

His previous requirements of living quarters had been "dry, and not too cold" for so long that he probably never would have registered this if not for Drächen. The little girl's eyes would widen with delight as Marie showed her a new bauble and named it for her. Often, Drächen would then present it to Jason, gravely holding it out for his comment, sometimes naming it for him in her turn. When mother and daughter made or found something together and Marie put it on display, the tiny child glowed with pride. Their combined creativity was both a wonder and a mystery to Jason, and he came to look forward to each new embellishment decorating their temporary home.

At 20 months, Drächen was a running, babbling little beauty. While Marie delighted inher little girl's antics, each new skill the baby developed robbed Jason of more peace of mind. Finally he forbade Marie to leave the apartment with the child.

"Jason, that's crazy! She's a little kid. She loves the outdoors. We can't keep her locked up inside all day!"

"It's not safe for her outside, Marie! Not when she's with us, anyway." He looked at her, thinking carefully about his next choice of words.

Marie's mouth turned down, her chin jutting out. "No," she said. "That is not even a possibility."

"What are we going to do when she's really talking and asks you why your name is different today? How are we going to explain why she babbles in English and German when I'm Portuguese and you're Croatian? Are you willing to dye her hair?"

Her face flamed with anger. She knew he had been reading the child development books that she picked up randomly in bookshops, and had thought it sweet. Now that she understood that his interest was in gathering arguments for sending Drächen away, her sense of betrayal was immeasurable. She sat down, eyes narrow and set on a distant point.

Jason took a deep breath. "There's a place—" he was cut short by her clenched fist slamming down on the table with a loud bang. He sat back, lips pressed together and brow creased, then looked down at his steepled hands. The baby awoke in the next room and started calling, "Mama, Mama." Marie stalked out of the room, shaking from head to toe. He heard her saying "Mama's here. Mama's here." Soon she was singing Drächen's favorite lullaby :

_Schlaf, Kindlein, schlaf.  
Der Vater hüt't die Schaf.  
Die Mutter schüttelt's Bäumelein,  
Da fällt herab ein Träumelein.  
Schlaf, Kindlein, schlaf.  
Schlaf, Kindlein, schlaf.(1)_

Its somatic properties had never failed, and this time was no different. Jason went to the bedroom door. Marie was resting back on the pillows, holding a sleeping Drächen tight in her arms.

"That one always works, huh?"

A nod. He came to the bed, sat down. "Where's it from?"

"Oh, I don't know really. I've always known it; most every German child does. I suppose my mother sang it to me."

"But you don't know?"

"You're not the only one who can't remember a family," she said.

Jason sat down and put his arm around her, and Marie rested her head against him, rolling into him, their daughter pillowed on their two bodies. There was a long pause as they listened to her dear exhalations.

"You really think we have to give her up for her to be safe?" she whispered into his chest. He tightened both arms around her, one hand moving up through her now-long and brown hair, then smoothing it back down again.

"Think about Paris, Marie. What if she had been with us when that window shattered?" He kept his voice barely above a whisper, not wanting to wake Drächen again. "What if she was in the car at the _Gare du Nord_? The night when I—when I hit you… I had the Glock out before I was even awake. What if—" He had never talked about that night before, couldn't bear explaining that he might well be the most immediate threat to their child.

She shivered "She won't remember me, the same as I don't remember my mother," she whispered in anguish. "I want her with me, with us."

"Me, too." Jason's voice was barely audible, his hands helpless on her back. "But I want her to live more."

Within days, he came home with three plane tickets to Mumbai. "The grid isn't as tight there, not like here," he said. "No one would find her there."

He drilled and re-drilled Marie in protocols for the trip. She was used to this, and was easily able to repeat them back to him by the day of his departure. Usually, they would each pack half the money in their effects; that way each would be covered in case of any delays, or worse. This time, Jason surprised her by leaving all of it with her, save what amounted to pocket change. "I'm more likely to be stopped, searched," was his explanation. She said nothing.

* * *

(1)_Sleep, baby, sleep_

_Your father tends the sheep_

_Your mother shakes the dreamland tree_

_And from it fall sweet dreams for thee_

_Sleep, baby, sleep_

_Sleep, baby, sleep_

Traditional German lullaby


	8. Chapter 7

"Time to go," he said. "Plane's in three hours." Their bags were packed. He never said goodbye in public, always planning a staggered exit: he would go first and they would follow after an interval he specified. If they were out, he would get them walking and then peel away from them as if it were only accidental that they had been walking together at all. Marie had learned to say her goodbyes the night or morning before, in private.

She came out of the bathroom to find them forehead to forehead, Drächen cradled in Jason's arms. The little girl touched his cheek, his mouth, her face turning serious at his gravity. Jason put Drächen in Marie's arms, nodded, and then walked out the door. He did not look back.

The week after he left was interminable. Marie wore a path between their hotels and whatever park was nearby with Drächen, though remembering to eat and shop for essentials at a different place every time was second nature by now. Late at night, while the baby slept, Marie counted and re-counted the money. Checked flight and train schedules and went through the passports, trying to decide if, then how and who. To what, or whom? In the end, she and Drächen boarded the flight to India. Where could she take Drächen that would be as safe? Who would love them more? She took the baby and she went, believing her choice was the best one available.

Because, maybe he was right. His memories, the supporting documentation that he had begun to collect from newspapers and the internet, they chilled her. He didn't talk as much about it to her any more, usually just offered the book up to her. Sometimes he would lean over her shoulder, point at an obituary picture stuck among the pages. "I killed him," he would say, "Explosives," or "Stabbing," or "Drowning." Eyes ashamed, and desperate to share. She would read and listen, troubled, cringing, then offer absolution, assurances that past was past, that he had regained his humanity. She did not often let herself consider that someone like Jason, but lacking that humanity, might be looking for them right now.

It had been one week and three days since they had seen him last when Marie glimpsed Jason in the crush of the preselected Mumbai street. She nearly disregarded everything they had practiced to run to him. The heat, the crowds of people, the unfamiliar language, the strain of being alone during the long journey, and the decision she had made; all were wearing on her. His face was blank, casual as he turned away and started walking. She managed to remember the plan and to follow him from a distance of one block, holding Drächen firmly on her hip, pointing out interesting things to her lest she spot Jason and call out, "Papa!"

The six-block walk seemed longer than it needed to be. Drächen was growing heavier, and wanted to get down and walk on her own. She fussed and squawked conspicuously, but did not notice Jason, walking a block and a half ahead of them now. At least it was easy to keep Jason in sight; he stuck out like a sore thumb in this locale, and so did she and Drächen.

Finally, Jason unlocked the door to a light blue Jeep parked in the street, and climbed in. On the passenger side? Not until Marie saw the steering wheel in his hands did she remember that in India, you drive on the left. She collapsed into the back with the baby and Jason started the engine. Drächen chortled in delight at the sight of her father. Jason looked at them both in the rearview, checked the traffic, and then looked back again, this time meeting Marie's eyes with his. If she hadn't known him, she wouldn't have seen the question there for her.

Only then did Marie realize that there were tears streaming down her face. She slid forward to lean her head on Jason's shoulder, wiping her eyes and face on his t-shirt, breathing in his familiar, reassuring smell. He stroked her head for a moment, running his hand down through her dirty hair before again gripping the wheel and pulling out into traffic. Marie sat up and rummaged in her bag for a bottle of water and a toy for Drächen. There was camping equipment packed into the back of the Jeep, along with food and water. It seemed that they had a long drive ahead of them.


	9. Chapter 8

Jason had driven this road twice in a week already, and his hatred of it was deep, passionate, and multi-faceted. Dusty, bumpy and often blocked by livestock, the only thing it had to recommend it was its remoteness. They stopped to camp at nightfall, Marie making a picnic for Drächen in the Jeep while Jason put the tent up, installed mosquito netting, and prepared a comfortable enough resting place. Marie said she was not hungry, but she filled two bottles from the water supply before carrying Drächen to the tent. The baby had a small book that she waved at Jason.

"_Buch,"_ said Drächen, proudly. Then she spied the bedding inside the tent. Squirming to get down, she ran inside, amazed. "_Bett?_" Drächen asked.

"This is our bed tonight," Jason told her, and she flopped down and thrust the book into his hands, content that all was right with the world.

"_Liest_," Drächen commanded, and they settled in for the bedtime story.

"_Oma Nana_…" read Jason. Drächen was snoring softly by the fifth page, enfolded in Marie's arms with a sweet smile on her beestung lips. Marie shifted to move the little girl over to her other side, but Jason stopped her. "Let's leave her put tonight." He wasn't planning on sleeping.

Marie was at least as tired as the baby she held. Too tired to ask or tell. She wearily let Jason envelop them in his arms, Drächen's head tucked under her chin tucked under Jason's chin, and was soon asleep. Jason kept vigil, the heft of the Glock 26 stuck in the back of his waistband balancing the weight of the two loves wrapped in his embrace.

They would reach Father John's tomorrow. Everything was ready, everything except Drächen and Marie. The place was not new, but it was clean. There were several nuns there to take care of the children. That reassured him; he didn't know why. Maybe he was Catholic… Marie was; maybe she would be reassured, too, seeing the nuns with the children. He had seen the sharp intelligence and calm acceptance in the priest's eyes.

Father John now had an envelope containing four photocopies: Drächen's birth certificate and the Austrian passport bearing her "official" name, his Brazilian passport and Marie's Austrian passport. "In case you need to prove who she is, that she's our child. Only to someone you can trust. No one in a uniform; no one with a badge," he told the priest. Aside from giving Drächen's age, and the day he expected to return with her, this was his full elucidation. Father John had glanced at the papers, nodded, and put the envelope in his safe. If he wondered why a Brazilian was speaking to him in American-accented English, he did not ask.

Gray light was streaking the sky; Marie stirred next to him. He had not been sure that she would actually use the plane tickets, had thought he might never look at her face in the morning light again. Even coated in grime from the long journey, it was so lovely. He reached to cup her cheek and tangle his hand in her hair, his elbow resting on the sleeping baby. Marie found herself clinging to him, her face pressed against his.

"Papa?" Drächen was tossing between them, looking up with sleep-blurred eyes.

"C'mere, Ladybug." Jason gave Marie a quick pat on the behind, then hoisted Drächen up to his chest, ignoring the bite of the Glock as he settled back onto it. The child snuggled up, using Jason's neck as a pillow. He closed his eyes, her soft baby skin searing his. His face felt worn and fragile, as if it might shatter. Marie lay back to look at Jason, sudden understanding chilling her.

"When?" she asked.

Jason nuzzled the fuzzy hair on the baby's head. "Today." He looked her in the eye, the same as he always did when he confessed to killing someone whose picture he was pasting into the book.

Marie nodded, once. Her breath caught in her throat and she swallowed with an audible click. "Could we— Is there enough water to give her a bath?" As if, somehow, handing her baby over clean instead of crusted with the dirt of three days' journey would make it more bearable. He nodded, yes. They lay back and breathed in their little girl, clasping hands over her tiny torso, waiting for the day to begin.

When Drächen opened her eyes and squawked a greeting to the morning, they got up. No denying the day had come. Jason helped Marie wash her, tickling the little girl's tummy and acting jolly when her little face screwed up in response to the chilly water, drying her off with a clean t-shirt. Marie had one last clean toddler outfit in her bag, and dressed Drächen in it, asking her to name each body part as the clothing went on over it, just like always. While Jason packed the Jeep, Marie and Drächen walked a short way up the road, naming the grass, the sky, the sun together in German, English, French. They were running after some ducks when Jason beeped the horn.

"_Es Ist Papa! Zum Auto laufen!"_ Marie told Drächen, and they ran holding hands back to the Jeep, and Jason. He caught them in his arms, lifting the baby up between him and Marie, Drächen's face pressed against one side of his neck and Marie's against the other, one laughing and one weeping. He kissed them both and opened the door to the Jeep's back seat. They got in and Jason went around to the driver's seat. He knew the way by heart. They would be at Kalipatnam by midday.

Marie was strong for Drächen. Jason could see that it took every ounce of her considerable will to put on a relaxed and positive face so that Drächen would not be scared. The only fissure erupted when she repeated too many times to the nuns that Drächen would need sunscreen when she went outside. Jason touched her lightly on the back, then scooped up the little girl. Drächen looked into Jason's face and laughed while he kissed her. He felt relieved that she seemed not to understand one bit of what was happening. Marie took her baby in her arms one last time and sang in her ear, slowly and sweetly, wanting Drächen to feel that they had all the time in the world.

_Schlaf, Kindlein, schlaf.  
Der Vater hüt't die Schaf.  
Die Mutter schüttelt's Bäumelein,  
Da fällt herab ein Träumelein.  
Schlaf, Kindlein, schlaf!  
Schlaf, Kindlein, schlaf!_

_Schlaf, Kindlein, schlaf.  
Am Himmel ziehn die Schaf.  
Die Sternlein sind die Lämmerlein,  
Der Mond, der ist das Schäferlein.  
Schlaf, Kindlein, schlaf!  
Schlaf, Kindlein, schlaf!_

_Schlaf, Kindlein, schlaf.  
So schenk' ich dir ein Schaf.  
Mit einer goldnen Schelle fein,  
Das soll dein Spielgeselle sein.  
Schlaf, Kindlein, schlaf!  
Schlaf, Kindlein, schlaf!_(1)

"_Gehst mit Schwester Angela,"_ she told her, and Drächen did, taking the waiting nun's hand. The small, saving grace was that Drächen did not cry, at least not while they could hear.

Marie's face was blank, her gait aimless, as they headed for the exit. Jason held her elbow and steered her to the office. He handed Father John an envelope stuffed with US25,000. The priest didn't open the envelope, just nodded and put it in the safe. Glanced up at Marie. "Go in peace," he said.

Jason nodded, gripped Marie's elbow again. Got her outside to the Jeep. Buckled the belt over her limp body, got in the driver's side and drove away.

"We can't come back here," he told her, "unless it's to take her away with us."

"When will that be?" she asked, dully, a tiny bit hopeful.

"When it's safe. When I know who I am. When they're not looking for me any more." There was futility in Jason's voice.

* * *

(1)Sleep, baby, sleep

Your father tends the sheep

Your mother shakes the dreamland tree

And from it fall sweet dreams for thee

Sleep, baby, sleep

Sleep, baby, sleep

Sleep, baby, sleep

Our cottage vale is deep

The little lamb is on the green

With snowy fleece so soft and clean

Sleep, baby, sleep

Sleep, baby, sleep

Sleep, baby, sleep,

Down where the woodbines creep

Be always like the lamb so mild

A kind, and sweet, and gentle child

Sleep, baby, sleep

Sleep, baby, sleep

_Traditional German lullaby  
Hear a definitely ungroovy version of this song at __/sarajordan/schlafkindlein.htm__  
More modern version by Anne Walsh (in German) or Freyda Epstein (in German and English) can be previewed at the iTunes store._


	10. Chapter 9

The next two days were a blur for Marie. Long hours in the Jeep, not three words between them. Eating a few bites mechanically when they stopped, drinking water when Jason pressed it on her. Jason handing her a boxed kit to turn her hair blonde in a Hyderabad hostel, then disappearing and reappearing with a newer, green Jeep. Driving on more bad roads, sleepy in the heat, suffocating in the fumes from her own hair. Waking up in the Jeep and hearing the surf, looking around and seeing lots of Western faces.

"Where are we?" she asked him. Her inner eyelids felt as if they were coated in ground glass.

"Goa. Wait here." He went into a small shack between a postcard vendor and a sweets shop. When he came out twenty minutes later, he had a few papers and a set of keys. He took her to a small cottage on the beach, opened the door. "It's ours," he said.

She sat on the sofa, took a breath. He was walking from room to room, the way he always did, formulating escape routes, checking out all the windows. Planning for danger that was never there. Marie inhaled more deeply, looked around. Surprised him by taking his hand as he walked back through the room on his way out to the porch. "Jason…" He stopped, glanced around the room. "Jason?" He fidgeted, glancing toward the door. She dropped his hand, and he left the room. She went to find out how the shower was working.

Marie understood Goa, the lifestyle, the expats. She started frequenting the beach, the market, and bought beautiful, colorful clothes. She lived the part, quit doing her nails, accessorized with rustic jewelry and hairclips. When she bumped into the same person twice, she did not shrink from conversation.

Jason observed her, silent, and then turned away. While Marie settled in, his unease only grew. He hardly ever left the cottage, except to run or to give Marie lessons in how to handle the Jeep and familiarize her with the roads in the area.

His runs stretched longer: Three miles down the beach from the cottage, and three miles back, every morning. Three miles in the opposite direction to the fishing pier, and three miles back, every evening. He would run right up to the cottage porch, as if the only thing stopping him from running forever was encountering the structure itself. Slicked in sweat from head to toe, but hardly puffing. His workout regimen, aside from running, could stretch to two or three hours per day. He didn't come to bed with her at night now. The only pieces of evidence that he ever slept at all were the signatures of his nightmares: sweat-soaked sheets, and the flatness of his eyes when the headache gripped him.

He started denying his memories to her. It was guilt over what he had cost her, Marie knew, and shame over what the dreams were showing him now. When Jason woke her in the night with the light on at the desk, or rummaging in the bathroom cabinet, he never mentioned the dreams on his own now, always blaming the headache. She wasn't fooled. She knew that the dreams and memories were triggers for the worst headaches. She started pushing, something she had never done before. Urging him to really work at remembering, or else admit that the images in his mind weren't memories at all. So that they could be free of this sentence. So that they could drive that awful road one last time and get Drächen back.

She spent more time away from the cottage. Started dropping by the same café at the same time every day, making acquaintances. She didn't feel justified. She had seen his face when he said goodbye to Drächen; she knew he loved their little girl just as much as she did. One day at the café, Marie turned to the college girl sitting at the table next to hers, a Canadian. "I love your tattoo," she said, smiling brightly.


	11. Chapter 11

Damned tattoos… She had come in from shopping, a few weeks after they left Kalipatnam, and two hours later than he expected her. Not a word to him, just a strip of gauze wrapped around her arm from shoulder to elbow. "What happened? Marie? Marie!" She hadn't looked at him, just unwrapped the gauze to reveal the fresh dragon tattoo, ink still glistening. It was huge. Distinctive.

He had explained to her about the danger of more tattoos. She kept her hair down over the one on her right shoulder blade all the time now. He had drilled her too long, too hard about identifying marks.

"It's for Drächen." Not looking at him, not looking at the tattoo. She pulled up her shirt to show a second shiny, new tattoo—a sharp, black, angular design—twined around her belly button. "This one's for me."

"Jesus Christ, Marie-" he started, before the look in her eyes silenced him. It wasn't defiant, not even sad. Just closed to him in a way he had never seen before, even in a Parisian taxicab the night of Wombosi's assassination. "Jesus Christ," he muttered, turning away, pulling drawers open and banging them shut. "Did they put ointment on them?" he asked. All they needed was an infection, a doctor visit, a trip to a hospital.

She sat down. Shook her head, no.

He found a small tube in one of the drawers and washed his hands. Went over to her, squeezed some ointment onto each fresh tattoo and spread it around. She winced at the pressure, the sting. Looking at him now, her face rubbery with grief.

"Marie." He knelt down next to her chair, and looked into her flat eyes. "We have to be smart now, smarter than ever. More cautious than ever, if we want to protect Drächen. I've told you—" He broke off, choking on his words. Not wanting to detail again his firsthand knowledge. "You know what they are capable of. Please, listen to me. Please help me keep her safe."

At the mention of their little girl's name, Marie began weeping. She threw herself into Jason's arms and soon loud, broken-hearted sobs came forth in a torrent. When she stopped, it was due only to sheer physical exhaustion, not any reduction in grief that he could see. He put her to bed, staying close, too concerned to leave her alone in the cottage.

As hours passed, and then a day, he tried to feed her rice and tea, but she refused everything, eyes welling anew with tears whenever he spoke to her. Finally, on the second day, he dove into her pool of anguish, lying down with her, his arms around her head, through crests of grief and lulls of stuporous non-slumber. Her sobs peaked as he whispered through his own tears, "She's safe, Marie." And, "God, I miss her." She kissed him fiercely, then, opening her top, yanking at his clothes. He went where she led. This he understood: that to be accompanied is a mercy. She found grace in a shared grief and it was enough to bring her back to him.

The next morning, she opened her eyes, hugged him tightly for a moment, then peeled herself away and got out of bed. He watched, waiting. "Do you want something to eat?" she asked. He ate with her, watchfully. Watched her get dressed to go out. There was no trace of motherhood anywhere on her body; no one would ever guess she had carried a baby.

"You're not swimming?" he asked. She had always liked a morning swim.

"Not with new tattoos. Anyway, we're out of food," she said. He thought she didn't want to swim without Drächen. Noting his look, she added, "It's okay; I'm okay. I know we did the right thing." She didn't add that she had grown to despise the right thing with every fiber of her being. "We didn't have a choice," she told him, her face betraying how bitter those words were beginning to taste to her.

He put on his running shoes and went down to the water. Started walking down the beach, loosening up his body. Hearing the laugh, high and sweet, that bubbled out of Drächen whenever they played in the surf. Scanning the horizon for the trouble that he accepted would inevitably visit them, Jason Bourne broke into a run.


	12. Chapter 12

Epilogue:

"Anneke!" Marie turned, Jason's pace quickening almost imperceptibly as he peeled away from her in the concourse outside the marketplace, trying to avoid contact.

"So, this is your boyfriend!" Her Canadian friend with the tattoo trotted up, breathless. Jason glanced back, reluctantly stopped as the two women embraced, kissing each other's cheeks.

The Canadian smiled, turned to Jason. She held out her hand. "I'm Susan."

Jason shook the proffered hand, nodded with a tense smile.

"Susan, this is Jaksa."

It was a rare treat to see her friend's boyfriend in person. Anneke said he was painfully shy, joked that she'd had to make all the moves. He sure acted that way, looking down and away, not meeting her eye once he dropped her hand. "I'm so happy to meet you! What do you think of Anneke's tattoos?"

Marie's smile slipped a notch. Jason smiled blankly and nodded, feigning incomprehension. They both noticed at the same time that Susan held a disposable camera in her hand.

"Hey, let me get a picture of you! I'm leaving Thursday. Back to the real world…"

Jason stepped back, smiling an embarrassed smile, waving his hands and demurring in Serbian. Susan laughed, cajoled, herded them together, trying to get a good shot. Marie could see that his annoyance was mounting. "Hey, Susan, could you take a couple of pictures of us? We'll buy the camera off you… My parents have been wanting to see photographic evidence that I found a decent guy."

"Well, sure. I mean, why not? I haven't taken any pictures with it yet. I can always go get another one."

Marie led Jason over to the low wall skirting the harbor and stepped up onto it behind him. She gave him a pinch on the bum to get him to lighten up, put her arms around his neck, leaned into him and smiled at the camera. "Take a couple," she called to Susan.

"Say paneer!" Susan twittered. She pressed the shutter twice in succession. Boy, was this guy retiring, or what? He wouldn't even look at the camera. At least he was smiling—if you could call that a smile.

Marie went to get the camera from Susan while Jason turned and contemplated the harbor. She dropped the camera into her bag, gave the Canadian a hug and some money, and said, "When are you leaving?" Jason was already 15 meters down the walkway. She shrugged in a _Can't live with him, can't live without him_, kind of way for Susan's benefit, and took off after him.

"Wait!" Susan called. "Now I won't have your picture!"

Jason actually let her develop the pictures and prop one up on the ledge in their cottage. Who was going to see it? They had reached an agreement about friends and acquaintances: stick to your simple story, see them in town, don't ask Jason to meet them. She stuck the other one in a book while he watched. "You look good with a blonde on your arm," she commented.

He reached his arms around her, gathered up all her hair in his two hands. "I dunno," he said, looking at her with a critical eye between kisses. "I think I like your hair a little more… Messy."

"I don't think I understand what you mean," she murmured.

"I could show you…"

A few days later, while he was out running, she removed the photo from the book and looked at it. Down at the bus station, she saw the heavily laden Susan struggling toward her bus.

"Hey, Susan!"

"Anneke! How sweet of you to come to see me off!" Marie took two of Susan's bags and fell in step with her.

"Of course I wanted to see you off," Marie grinned, offhand in every way imaginable. Eye contact. Tone. Body language.

They were in the boarding line now. "Hey, would you do me a favor? Remember I told you about Kalipatnam? The priest we volunteered with for awhile? The kids there would be so thrilled to get mail from North America. They collect the stamps. Would you post this for me when you get home to Winnipeg?" She held out an envelope, its contents sandwiched between two sheets of cardstock. "I put my return address on it, in Rotterdam, so they can see who it's from. Father John is kind of funny about that… Security." Marie rolled her eyes, raised her shoulders and let them drop.

"Of course I will!" Susan was about to climb the steps now. She tucked the envelope into her passport case. "It'll be safe in here."

Marie clasped her friend in a hug, tears stinging her eyes. "Thank you. Bye, Susan."

Susan quickly returned the hug, took her bags back, and boarded the bus to Mumbai. She was a little surprised that Anneke would cry at her departure. They had only talked a handful of times, really. _She must be lonely_, thought the Canadian, zipping up her passport case_. That guy of hers is so shy. I mean, you can see why she's with him; he's gorgeous, but antisocial. And that haircut! Almost military…_ She shook her head and settled in for the longest bus ride of her life. No telling why two people stay together, she thought, as the bus lurched into motion.


End file.
